The topic of women's participation in the military orders is one
which has not had nearly as much attention as it warrants. For that
reason alone, Myra Miranda Bom's book is a welcome addition to the
literature. Potential readers should be aware from the outset,
however, that the book delivers both more and less than the title
suggests.

The book is divided into several distinct sections. The first
discusses medieval attitudes to women in religious life in general.
Central to Bom's thesis is the notion that the military orders'
attitudes to female membership derived from the monastic tradition
from which these orders developed. She concurs with earlier
suggestions that the Hospitallers were more open to women
membership because their order emerged out of the Augustinian
canonical tradition which valued good works in the community and
expressed its vocation through care for the sick. From this
perspective, the order's military role was simply an extension of
this expression of service. In contrast to this, she suggests, the
Order of the Temple had its roots in the monastic Cistercian
tradition and had a far more cautious attitude to women membership.
This differing tradition is adduced to explain the relatively
greater numbers of women documented as members of the Hospitallers
as opposed to the Order of the Templars, which rejected women as
members in 1129. She also demonstrates, however, that this
distinction may not have been so neat in reality: the Templars did
in fact have women members after this date, including one woman
commander in northern Spain in the late thirteenth century, and
many nunneries founded by women in northern Spain during this
period were under the aegis of the Cistercian Order. The Teutonic
Order took elements from the rule of both its major predecessors:
the Templar's rule for warfare and the Hospitaller's rule for
hospital and charitable work. It therefore does not fit precisely
into either category. The author does not link her discussion of
women's participation in religious life to the emergence of the
crusading movement nor does she explore the extent to which women
who joined these orders did so out of a desire to participate in
the crusading movement. This would have been a welcome addition to
the analysis but given the nature of the sources it may be
difficult to establish.

The introductory section is followed by an overview of the female
membership of a number of military orders during the twelfth and
thirteenth century. The author cites the difficulty of establishing
the existence of female members in these orders. In houses where
both sexes are known to have been represented, the members of the
community are referred to in the masculine plural, effectively
disguising the female element. Women rarely appear in documentation
relating to the orders and in general it is likely that estimates
of female participation are significantly understated. This chapter
discusses women in the Order of the Temple, the Order of Calatrava,
the Order of Santiago, the Teutonic Order and the order of Saint
Lazarus of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the major focus of the book as
a whole is women's role in the Order of the Hospital of St John,
and therefore, although this chapter contains much of interest,
readers will not find an exhaustive analysis of the role of women
in other orders here.

The bulk of the book is then devoted to a more in-depth analysis of
the development of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and its
attitude to the membership of women, focusing on the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. An account of the development of the Order
reiterates the importance of its Augustinian roots and traces its
development and gradual militarization alongside the changes in
attitudes to women in religious orders. Women were associated with
the order since the early twelfth century, although the first
sister in the order is not documented until 1146.

A variety of forms of membership were open to women who wished to
share in the merit of the Hospitaller order, and the author
analyses these in detail. In particular she discusses forms of lay
association and the distinction between the terms "donat" and
"consoror," concluding that while the specific term used might vary
locally, the type of affiliation these implied remained constant:
the "consoror" relationship allowed associates to share in the
spiritual benefits brought by the order in return for taking a vow
and making a donation in money or in kind, while the "donat" type
of affiliation represented the first step towards full professed
membership. Women who did take the next step to become full members
of the order were to be found working alongside men throughout the
area in which the order was active; the author specifically cites
the cases of the commanderies in Toulouse, Saint-Gilles and
Cervera. From the 1170s onwards, in response to papal demands for
the segregation of women, women's houses were set up in Sigena in
Aragon by Sancha, queen of Aragon, in Buckland in England by Henry
II, and in Manetin, sixty miles west of Prague. A further seven
women's houses were established during the thirteenth century. The
author describes the foundation at Sigena in some detail. She
argues that the association with the Hospitallers allowed the queen
to establish a community where she could participate in a religious
life while still fulfilling her royal duties. The queen wrote an
addition to the Hospitaller rule for the new foundation, and this
allows detailed and vivid insight into the daily lives of the
members. Bom regards this rule as "the first evidence for a new
life of contemplation for Hospitaller sisters" (88), although women
elsewhere continued to contribute to the active lives of mixed
commanderies.

Finally, the author poses the question as to why the order appears
to have been relatively positive in its attitude to women members.
The statistical evidence presented shows that of the thirty-five
commanderies which are known to have had women among their
membership in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, only ten or
possibly twelve had hospitals. Women therefore appear to have
contributed to a variety of roles in the order, including
leadership. Of these thirty-five commanderies, six had women
commanders at some point in their history; of these five were in
Spain and one in southern France. It seems probable that women were
more likely to be recruited in areas where male recruitment was
difficult and where there was a specific requirement for defence
against the Moors. Less surprisingly, the author also points out
that women often brought status, royal connections and also large
donations. For the women, affiliation to the order, in whatever
form it took, gave a promise of security and the opportunity to
participate in its spiritual life.

Students and researchers with an interest in female monasticism and
the Hospitaller order will find much to interest them here. As the
book demonstrates, it is difficult to generalise about this topic.
Doctrine did not always reflect reality and instead much of what
shaped women's participation in the military orders appears to have
been a pragmatic response to local circumstances. The author gives
a great deal of information on the detail of the how the Order of
St John functioned and of the contribution of specific individuals,
and this is where its greatest contribution lies. There is,
however, much more detailed work to be done before scholars have
exhausted the theme of women's participation in the military
orders.